Coppola talks up ‘Twixt’ at Comic-Con

Helmer describes big plans for his first 3D pic

Francis Ford Coppola hasn’t been to Comic-Con to promote one of his projects since “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” in 1992.

But the helmer took the stage in Hall H again, Saturday morning, to discuss his latest horror pic, “Twixt,” a self-produced pic that stars Val Kilmer, Ben Chaplin and Elle Fanning, and is a story based on a dream he once had.

“I don’t like watching 3D with glasses,” said Francis Ford Coppola during his presentation for horror pic “Twixt.” He admitted to watching “Avatar” much of the time without the 3D glasses, wanting to only put them on when he thought the scenes required to be seen that way.

“I was taken back when all studios said they would make all movies in 3D as if it’s the magic fix. No,” Coppola said. Instead, technology enables directors to experiment in other ways.

“Films are digital files and if the director wanted to he could change the experience to suit the audience,” including the music, which Coppola wants to do for a live audience when he travels the country in October. Coppola essentially wants to rollout the pic as a live concert-like tour in 30 cities, where he alters the music as the film plays on the fly.

In a “dress rehearsal,” Coppola used an iPad and computers to demonstrate performance for auds in the 6,000 seat room wearing Edgar Allen Poe masks with built-in 3D glasses. The author appears as a character in the pic, which does not yet have distribution.

“Imagine this for 30 nights,” joked the composer after a number of starts and stops.

When a fan asked if Coppola could promise no one would remake “The Godfather,” “I was 29 when I made ‘The Godfather’ and have no legal control over it.”

“When they remake old films it’s a pity because that money could go into making new films with new stories,” Coppola said.